Greg's Place
Greg's place of musings and family funMarch 27, 2002
The Thrashing Continues
Take a look at some of the NYT op-ed pieces, and, especially if you're Maureen Dowd, the writing is not only on the wall, but it's written on billboards across the country. The recent crisis of Catholicism threatens to bring down Rome. As a Catholic, I am very saddened by these facts, but they do seem to be inevitable. I'm also saddened that the Vatican, with it's despicable response toward this situation, has put a shotgun to it's own head, and pulled the trigger. I can't tell which is worse, the death of the church as we know it, or a continuation of the farce that it has chosen for itself. One thing that I do know, is that Catholics in general have learned, and rightly so in my opinion, to put more faith in their own gut feelings about what is right and wrong, the degree to which things are right and wrong, rather than having unquestioning faith in what the 'official' proclamations of the church are on what is right and wrong. People are saying that this is purely an American phenomenon, but I don't agree. I think this concept is more prevalent than most folks think, especially in Europe. For some more editorial reading:
NYT:
The Systematic Corruption of the Catholic Church
Interestingly enough, I could only find one editorial piece in the Boston Globe. They say the Globe is very anti-Catholic, but looking at the evidence, they seem to be the least critical of all the rags:
Lost credibility not easily regained
Here is the full paragraph from the Holy Thursday letter that everyone is quoting:
"At this time too, as priests we are personally and profoundly afflicted by the sins of some of our brothers who have betrayed the grace of Ordination in succumbing even to the most grievous forms of the mysterium iniquitatis at work in the world. Grave scandal is caused, with the result that a dark shadow of suspicion is cast over all the other fine priests who perform their ministry with honesty and integrity and often with heroic self-sacrifice. As the Church shows her concern for the victims and strives to respond in truth and justice to each of these painful situations, all of us – conscious of human weakness, but trusting in the healing power of divine grace – are called to embrace the “mysterium Crucis” and to commit ourselves more fully to the search for holiness. We must beg God in his Providence to prompt a whole-hearted reawakening of those ideals of total self-giving to Christ which are the very foundation of the priestly ministry."
That's it. 1 of the 11 points covered in the letter, and 1 paragraph in 4 that slightly hints at an apology. This level of dodging the issue and complete avoidance of responsibility is truly sad.
March 26, 2002
Sad Market Destruction
This is really sad. Online radio stations are going from rough costs of $1k per year to $1k per day under this recommendation by CARP. I like listening to these folks, but it looks like the DMCA will strike another blow at free speech in the name of corporate profits ... and at the expense of both consumers and artists.
Salon.com Technology | Web radio's last stand "The Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel, a body appointed by the U.S. Copyright Office, ruled on Feb. 20 that under the DMCA, radio stations must pay a fraction of a cent per song, per listener, for every song they stream. Under the CARP ruling, Internet-only radio stations would pay a royalty fee of 14/100 of a cent per song, per listener, retroactively through October 1998. Webcasters are up in arms -- while they are not opposed to the principle of royalty fees, they say the rate structure is far out of balance to the economics of these tiny, often one-person operations."
March 25, 2002
Latest in the Pool of Radiance
More great email from the Dahn:
"Greg I'll try and give you a recap of what happened on Sunday.
After setting the Cult of the dragons back quite a bit by distroying a
christal that was needed by the Dragon litch. The band of hero's ran away to
a nearby town about (40 miles away) Tally and Anachron spend about a month
training and preparing spells. The group decides to try and free the slaves
the Cult is useing to dig up the tomes / grave yard. and then get the hell
out of Dodge.
On the way there we run into 3 trolls tracks One of Baltoes favored
enemies. baltoe tracks them down and Tally moves around them very quietly
and fireballs them. (his training in town was for 5th level wizard) Baltoe
moves up and then casts Entangel on them (his one spell per day) But having
an INT of 8 the manages to get caught in the entangle him self. Two of the
Trolls save one comes through and attacks Boltoe and the other doesn't
quite make it out. The party moves up and starts to attack the troll. the
other troll next round is able to attack Mordahn gets off a Ray of
enfeeblement on one of the trolls but rolls horrably only reducing his
damage by one (but it does that to all three of there attacks. Baltoe
manages to get out of his entangle, Tally still being off to the side sets
up the two trolls and is able to get them with two scorcher spells. Mantrias
gets hit hard by one of the trolls but then both of them are taken down. By
this time the third troll has finally gotten out of the entangle and is
coming around he meets tally. Of caurse the troll misses Tally. the rest of
the party almost surrounds the third troll. mantrias thrack baltoe and
Tally. Anachron stayed back and took down troll number one when he got back
up. Mordahn was casting healling spells on Baltoe. We piled up the trolls
and Thrack stayed by then hacking away while the rest of us clear an area to
put the troll in and burn them. the trolls had 30 gp on them.
Later on that day Baltoe and one other member spot a Unicorn. Baltoe says
that its a good omen. that night we are attacked by two phase spiders.
Baltoe and Mantrias were on watch. ( these guys really suck the damage is
almost nothing 5 to 10 points but you have to make a fort. save or loose
something like 5 to 7 points of CON.) Both Baltoe and Mantrias screem for
the party to get up.
Round 1 the party gets up and gathers there stuff. Baltoe runs over
and unties the horses. Anachron and Mantrias are attacked this time. both
fail there saving throughs both loose something like 30 points, Mantrias
does some damage to one of the spiders.
Round 2 Mordahn not having a horse runs in the direction we were
heading, into the night blind for all purposes. Baltoe and Anachron are
attacked this round both make there saves both do some damage to the
spiders. Baltoe then runs in the direction that Mordahn went. Anachron move
to his horse, the others are able to mount and ride.
Round 3 the phase spider, phase back in and attack anachron he blows
both saving throws his CON went to either 0 or a negative number either way
he's dead.
Round 4 Mordahn casts a light spell and calls everyone over to to
him.
Round 5 Baltoe and Tally go have a look and see the spiders on top
of Anachron. Tally casts a spell and Baltoe uses his bow in round six they
kill the spiders.
Mordahn looks to Baltoe and says nice "good omen" what the hell is a bad
one. (even though we both know that having Geof die was awesome)
Mantrias rasies Anachron because he can and Anachron wants to come back. the
next day Anachron needs to rest. so Baltoe and Tally scout out the area for
more spiders. they find the nest but aren't sure if there are any more
inside so they torch the webs (no more spiders) they check the nest and
Tally finds a bag of holding.
We sneak into the ruins and find our good ghost / litch. who tells us of a
portal in one of the tomes. (I can't remember the name of the tome but it
was the Wolf one. with the 6 electrical statues.) He tell us that the
electrical discharge only works once every 24 hours.Anachron casts
protection form elements on tally and he just walks across the floor and all
the statues go off. Tally takes no damage. We find the secret door to a tome
where the portal is there is another elven sarcoficus. Mordahn tell Baltoe
to open it up and baltoe rips the top opn and Mordahn starts to go for
stuff. The elf that was in there animates (mummy). Mordahn win initative and
rolls awesome on his turn check the mummy jumps out and runs to a corner.
Everyone stay 10 feet away and eventually we kill it.Mordahn asks to use the
longsword that was on the mummy and we store the brest plate in the bag of
holding.. Both were magical.
About an hour later the slave showed up with 6 gaurds and a wizard. we had a
fight and reenforcements started to come we killed of another 2 dragon kin.
Mordahn finds out that the longsword he's using gets a critical on a 17-20
roll. Before the big reinforcement got there we freed the slave and everyone
ran into the tome into the portal. we closed all the doors behind us. thats
where we ended . We are in a cellar of some bar in a big ass city were we
can sell the bone mantle and septer of orback. for some good cash.
We will pick up starting out in the ceiler with our horses and 20 slaves. I
don't think we will be playing for another 3 weeks. So till then there won't be any updates.
March 15, 2002
Bio tech magic
I used to dream about this in high school. I always wanted to be involved in this kind of work, but I never had the stomach for medical things. Heaven knows how I ended up in the Marines!
Brain Power "In a small lab at Brown University in Providence, RI, a rhesus macaque sits in a chair facing a computer screen, gripping the handle of a device that looks a lot like a sailboat's tiller. For the moment, the monkey uses this device as if it were a computer joystick to control a simple video game: a colored dot appears on the screen, and the animal moves the cursor to meet it. Once the animal gets good at the task, though, the researchers in the adjoining room will flip a switch and it will be signals straight from the monkey's brain, not the joystick's movements, that drive the cursor. "
Onyx Equinox
I really like this PBEM game I've signed up for. I signed up a couple weeks ago, and the posting is absolutely top quality stuff. Someone said it reads like a fantasy novel, and he was right. I'm hooked. Here is the latest quote (as of this writing, of course). I, of course, play Charla, the rogue/cleric. The poster here is playing a fairly intelligent fighter, something rarely seen anymore.
Yahoo! Groups : 3edndpbem: RE: Turn 55, The Trogs Take A Beating
"Eldrick is impressed with Charla's combat performance. A Cleric of
Pelor, yes. But the clothes. The sneak attack. Something rogue-
ish about this one. What is here story, her background? But there
will be time for pleasantries later. Hopefully.
Eldrick heads back into the library, and motions Charla and T'Len to
follow him. He closes the wood door behind him, and pushes a
bookcase or two in front of the door. Simultaneously, he instructs
Osha to close the iron door and place the bookshelf across the L-
brackets, to lock the door. The party's area is now semi-secure,
and they can hold a quick strategy session. Caedras and Alderos
continue to hold the trapped trog in check.
Eldrick monitors the two outside doors, and speaks to the
group. "We have several options. We have to establish our
priorities." Eldrick believes the top priority should always be to
negate any immediate threat. That has been done, for the moment,
with their victorious battle.
The next priority should be to negate any medium-term threat. He
agrees with Alderos (and in fact has suggested this before) that the
hatch be sealed. (He turns to Charla: "There is a grave hatch on
the other side of this level from which several trogs have
surfaced.") But the party should not be split up to accomplish
this. This has been tried before, to tragic consequences. The
party must stay together, continuing to mass its firepower. So,
first, we should clean up the loose ends right here. Question the
trapped trog. And determine who is banging on the far door. Is it
one of the monks? Is it Kaelibeth? Or an enemy? Then the party
can return to searching for Kaelibeth, the monks, and ultimately
Fennil and Maur'tsan.
So, short-term goal #1, Eldrick believes, should be to question the
trog. Aldreros and Caedras are doing this now, quite well, in their
respective styles, Eldrick believes. Eldrick adds his own bit of
Draconic to the discussion. "If he doesn't cooperate, kill him."
Eldrick isn't a fan of killing for killing's sake, but there is no
other good option here. Their lives are at stake. Eldrick knows
that he didn't even have to add this bit of advice, as Caedras will
no doubt finish the beast whether he talks or not.
Short-term goal #2, Eldrick believes, is to deal with the banging
from the opposite room. "Charla, you've been in that room. Who do
you think is in there?" Eldrick wants to find out if she believes
the odd-looking trogs [isn't that redundant?] are still in there.
Eldrick asks T'Len to accompany him to the door, melee weapons
readied. Eldrick first speaks Draconic through the door, doing his
best to imitate the barks of a troglodyte. "Who is in there?" He
will wait for a response. His next sentence will be in common,
asking the same thing.
Eldrick remembers the banging from the upstairs room, the livestock
holding room. If his navigational skills serve him correctly [and
Eldrick has spent two points on the cross-class skill Intuit
Direction, and fancies his nav skills as sharp from his military
training], that room is directly above the room in front of him.
Could it be the same banging? Eldrick's mind continues to churn.
Charla reported seeing a monk up through the secret passageway,
laying motionless. That should be about where the monk was lying
prone in the same livestock holding room. Perhaps the same monk?
Charla's report of dripping blood is not a good sign.
If there are trogs in the room, Eldrick will likely be content to
leave them there, trapped. They can be dealt with later. If a
potentially friendly voice comes back through the door, however,
that will likely warrant further attention.
After these two short-term goals are resolved, Eldrick feels the
party should venture down the corridor, secure the grave hatch, then
up the stairs to the livestock room to check on Kraiger or whichever
monk is at the top of the secret passageway. Eldrick recommends a
marching order of T'Len and himself in the front, Alderos and Osha
in the middle, and Caedras and Charla in the rear. Osha should be
positioned between the brawny T'Len and her crush Caedras to reduce
her level of fear. If and when the party does venture down the
corridor, they should move silently, weapons readied (Eldick with
his crossbow), keeping a keen lookout. The ruby that Charla found,
being further down the hallway, indicates that the trog(s) that
found the sword likely went in that direction. Perhaps the jewel
fell out as they retreated with the sword. Or perhaps the steel-
loving beasts discarded it, thinking that it ruined the beauty of
such a handsome specimen of steelwork.
During any idle time, Eldrick will ask Charla to expound on the
firetrap that they triggered earlier. He will also encourage
Alderos to read the parchments from the table, and Osha to aid
Charla in performing a search in the library (especially of the
books) and of the dead trogs' bodies.
One more thing is on Eldrick's mind. The fact that Caedras did not
target the trog attacking Alderos but instead targeted the trapped
trog did not escape his notice. Caedras has his own motives, to be
sure, but for the party to survive, no one can be distrusted in
battle. Eldrick does not know if this was done intentionally, or
was merely a tactical mistake [or, Adam, an innocent action]. But
Eldrick feels as though something should be done, however
ineffective on the independant Caedras. As he makes his way toward
the banging, Eldrick brushes up lightly against Caedras. He pauses,
and let's the glint of his longsword from the torches dance across
the elven sorcerer's face. "Next time, friend, I trust you'll make
a better tactical decision." Eldrick and T'Len continue toward the
door to put his plan into action.
OOC: Mitch, a small logistical clarification. Earlier, Eldrick did
not bring an entire bookcase from the library to block the iron
door. He used the bench just inside the door, on the right. He
used a single shelf from the bookcase to lay across the L-brackets,
securing the door in place.
Still OOC: Ok, I know that was a long post. But we're at a sort of
branch in the decision tree as to what to do next. You have my
thoughts. Any different/better ideas?"
March 14, 2002
My first ebay bid...
OK, I'm getting into the game! This is my first time bidding on something on ebay. So far, it's a lot of fun. We'll see how fun it is if something goes wrong. Go ahead, just try to outbid me! New Apple Power Mac G4 466 with Sony Monitor
March 13, 2002
Netflix
We LOVE Netflix! My wife is very bad at returning videos, so Blockbuster was making a killing off of the two fo us. Now, since a relative introduced us to Netflix, we've been enjoying all kinds of crazy movies.
TIME.com: The Movie Is in the MailThe world didn't exactly shake when Betsy Daly stopped going to Blockbuster a year ago, but the movie-rental giant would be smart to ask itself whether this 33-year-old San Jose, Calif., mom represents the future. Daly now pays $15 a month to order her DVDs online. They arrive in the mail in a day or two, she gets to keep two at once (for $5 more a month she could keep three), and she mails them back whenever she feels like it. "I love that the movie can sit on the counter for weeks, and it doesn't matter," she says. "I got so tired of late fees at Blockbuster."
March 12, 2002
The truth does eventually come out
The truth does eventually come out. This is from the NYTimes today. Geoghan was my priest when I was a kid at St. Andrew's in Jamaica Plain. Just a few weeks ago, they removed our local parish priest from St. Bernadette's in Randolph. It's affected so many hundreds, thousands of people, I cannot fathom how any organization can actively harass victims in the way that the church has done. I don't hold the individual church leaders responsible, as many have done with Cardinal Law. I hold the organization of the Catholic Church itself responsible. It's so mind-bogglingly huge that this issue could potentially topple the church. I'm not sure if that's a good thing, or a bad one, but whatever it is, it's of the church's own making. Secrecy Over Abusive Priests Comes Back to Haunt Church"It's not simply a case of an organization whose agents have erred," he said. "It's an organization that knew about the improprieties and actively concealed it."
March 11, 2002
More KPIG
More funny stuff from KPIG, like these interpretations of job ad one-liners, this one striking a little too close to home: " 'Problem Solving Skills a Must' - You are walking into a company in perpetual chaos. Haven't heard a word from anyone out there. Your first task is to find out what is going on. "
March 08, 2002
Beer
This was too funny! I picked up the image from KPIG, and online radio station that's having some legal trouble doing what they're doing.
X-File Character Rules
OK, this is pretty funny: 10 Rules for Being an X-Files Character . I wonder if there is a random x-file quote generator somewhere on net. I like this one the best: "This is about Mulder, isn't it?". That can be said at almost any time during the shows since Mulder has left. Even before!
March 07, 2002
Saffire
Wow. Bill has hit the nail on the head with this one.
The Urge to Converge: "We oppose the concentration of authority in the federal government, urging its devolution to states and localities. We seek to empower productive individuals by cutting taxes. Our mothers' milk is market competition.
Why, then, should we supinely go along with the seizure of economic power by today's triopolies and duopolies on their march to becoming tomorrow's monopolies?"
March 05, 2002
Yahoo's back
Of course, as soon as I post a complaint, it goes ahead and proves me a liar. My latest post is posted: Yahoo! Groups : 3edndpbem
Yahoo's Back, Sort of
OK, now that they're back, are they really back? That's the Yahoo Groups issue I mentioned yesterday. I posted a note this morning, around 9-ish or 10-ish, but it still isn't updated on the site yet. Now that the Oracle db is fixed, it looks like the email queue needs some attention.
March 04, 2002
Yahoo Goups Outage
This Yahoo! Groups outage is killing me! I recently signed up for a great play-by-post DnD game that was hosted there, and this weekend, things really got started with my character! Now I'm stuck waiting for this crazy outage to clear. At first, sometime this morning, there was an error connecting to a database. Now, they've shut the site down redirected traffic to a funny error page. Real funny. Two years ago, Yahoo said it was an attack, others say it's equipment failure. Whatever it is now, just fix it!